Let's Stop Pretending About Cybersecurity

The recent Equifax and Deloitte breaches further demonstrate the wretched state of cybersecurity.

It's entirely apparent that hackers, attackers and thieves are winning the battle over cybersecurity. The fact that companies like Equifax and Deloitte can't lock down systems proves that cybersecurity is a total mess.

These recent breaches are completely unacceptable. The Equifax failure affected 143 million Americans. It could lead to massive fraud and identify theft.

The Deloitte breach is even more disturbing from an IT perspective. This, after all, is a consulting firm that specializes in cybersecurity -- and one that works with a who's who of the corporate world along with government agencies. Among its key recommendations to clients: Never establish an administrator account without multi-factor authentication.

Yet, that's exactly what Deloitte did with its own IT systems. Thus, intruders appear to have gained unrestricted access to sensitive communications between the firm and at least six clients. "To make matters worse, it appears that no one at Deloitte noticed suspicious account activity for months," says Willis McDonald, threat research manager at Core Security.

The Ponemon study also found that only 17 percent of respondents believe their organizations are effective in mitigating third-party risk -- down from 22 percent in the 2016 study. In addition, only 35 percent of respondents think that third parties would inform them if they experienced a breach -- a figure that drops to 11 percent for fourth parties and beyond.

The disconnect is profound. And things will only get worse as the Internet of Things takes shape.

However, technology progress and cybersecurity don't have to be a zero-sum game. Unfortunately, enterprise leaders talk a good game but frequently don't deliver on cybersecurity. There's no excuse for the vast majority of breaches that occur. Equifax and Deloitte are just the latest examples of a completely broken mindset and haphazard approach.

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